Good time reliance status: Phorium.

So here we are, then. I'm listening to Syro. That's the most pertinent news of the day for anyone who's alive. Jeb doesn't like it, yet. Then again, I will tease him forever for what I consider to be his deficiencies in the 'listening to too much soft-rock and thinking that mere gentilesse passes for beauty' department.

Hey, I get heroin AIDS needles jabbed in my ears for some of the music I listen to. You have to put up with this when you're all as opinionated and self-righteous as we are.

Especially Jeb 'Ken Bruce' Hardwick.

This in-band acceptance of interpersonal hatred and hostility comes from another fifteen-hour (or as I like to call it 'infinite') van ride down to Hamburg for the 2014 Reeperbahn festival. Binky The Van is looking worse than Mickey Rourke at the moment, which means we had to do a Rob Lowe and rent a much younger, more attractive model. We did, however, [Yewtree inappropriate], so it was a bit of a squeeze with five of us and all our gear.

Talking of Rob Lowe, Reeperbahn, or the Reeperbahn, if you don't know (Dad), is the red-light district in the port city of Hamburg. That's where we went on the first night.

Um.

It's a bit weird.

I don't know why I expected anything better than it actually was. Maybe because it was particularly grim. Imagine Blackpool (or, Hello Hometown, Paignton/Torbay), where instead of signs saying 'BIG CASH PRIZES' there are signs saying 'SEX HERE NOW BANG BANG BANG RELENTLESSLY'...and there are people who look like the operators of stolen, layby-parked fairground rides standing outside, somehow appealing to some members of the, inevitably, British, Australian, and American crowds that gather with rather more than money in their hands. 

Paignton: My first love. Feeling sexy, yet?

 

It was noisy, bright, and certainly a spectacle. We would return the following evening, after the gig, also, as it was heavily advised that we visit the 'Men Only' street, which, in its touristiness and bizarrely clinical isolation, resembled a Harry Potter film directed by [inappropriate Yewtree]. I started many conversations with the people there, trying to (Lord, why this vocabulary?) get a flavour of the mood and attitudes.

'Hi.'

'Hey, Baby.'

'How are you? Are you OK?'

'I'd be even better if you came inside.'

'No – I'm not going to. I'm actually wondering how you are.'

'Mmm, I'm good, baby – you wanna come in and I'll make you feel good, too?'

'No – I literally just said that I'm not coming in, and I don't believe the sincerity of how you say you're feeling. Are you actually alright? I'd assume it's a bit rubbish, in there.'

'You don't want me?'

'Again, I just said...'

window closes

The business of the gig was what it was. We were kind of tired, what with the logistics of transcontinental travel and infuriatingly obstinate prostitutes to deal with, but we think we were OK. We were filled with 'foreign country adrenaline', even if we left our sleep back in England. Running around all day... I mean, thanks to all who came. Everyone around the gig was really friendly, and, especially in 'the other countries', we couldn't do without that kind of support.

The trip was not all about prostitution and crippling insecurity in presentation, though, as we got to go to an industry party or two, which - for those of you wandering or dreaming about what these kinds of thing amount to i.e. what attitudes are involved, what the general atmosphere is like – is a million miles away from either of those things.

After such fulfilling adventures, then, it was left to a couple of Humming Records people and related artists to provide the perfect palliative to our spiritual fatigue, taking us around the city following those more insistent engagements and pulling the curtain back again on the superiority of German nightlife to the bulk of what our Great (and forever United, it would seem) Isle has to offer. Some of the German bars hold lights under 17,000,000,000 lumens, which is particularly novel. Beer is to be readily purchased for little outlay, and consumed in the street, where throngs of smiling revellers greet each other, relatively happily, their teeth not yet stained from midnight vomit nor the blood of their lips from too much sneering.

Still – I don't mean to complain. Consider it the standardly accepted weatherly whinge we accept when people return from Spain: 'Oh, it was much nicer over there...' etc., only consider that my gripe relates to core aspects of our self-determining culture, rather than weather patterns.

A bundle of idle noise, then.

 

The trip was whistlestop, bizarre, mind-bending, and distancey.

Straight to Southsea.

Actually a lovely change of pace, in Portsmouth. This was one hour, down the road. Weird. We like to keep it by the sea, when we can, it seems. Great crew, again – friendly and helpful and professional. I've said it before, but it's things like that that can make or break a gig and it makes a real difference when the people around you are supportive. So, like, thanks Southsea crew omg blushes

And yeah.

This is what hashing over memories with a cup of overly strong, cheap coffee and the new Aphex Twin will give you. A little bit of nothing and someone for everything.

Next time I'll fill you in over a cup of Chamomile and some Debussy, and we'll see if it comes out a little sweeter – a little less self-referentially hectic – and – perhaps – a little more standardly punctuated.

Unlike our lives, of course.

'Oh man, Tim, did that just come to you?'

'Yeah.'

'Cowabunga!'

'That's not entirely appropriate.'

So, it's Monday.

Our luck never changes, does it.

Be well, and don't try and be clever. It won't work.

Tim

We are doughnuts, all of us.

Dear Berlin, this is for you:

Fifteen hours. Fifteen hours in the van.

[Don't start with this, Tim, for god's sake.]

Hard seats and road noise and debates about the link between influential statements and criminal actions. Where does the buck stop? Long, long roads and Europe's flat and open fields. A 5am start, blind eyes punctured by text messages from one person or another:

Be safe!

This screen is too bright.

Don't forget to bring x!

I already packed, in a fit of excitement, three days ago.

Make sure you drive on the right side of the road! Not the right side, I mean, but the right side. Drive on the right side.

Destroy me. Take me to the place they make the glue.

6am: cigarettes and no breakfast.

Music, language, geography, and little leak of diesel.

[Skip to the end]

That evening, on arrival, we literally dripped into our apartment, funneled out of the cool Berlin air in what was apparently the 'interesting' part of town. It looked perfectly friendly to we naïve little children, wandering about in the dark with suitcases, grins, and hopeful eyes, like Pinocchio in the circus, or a cute, blonde, country girl taking her first steps onto the streets of LA, going to her first audition glad that there's that tarpaulin on the casting couch, lest she spill her drink. Oh, hello. With those huge arms, you must be a writer? No?

I was asked to go out and get some beers and, in a linguistic tangle, ended up buying shandy and not nearly enough of it. I was a fool. A damn fool.

Not for long, however, as after a quick dinner we hit the hay. Or at least I, my short straw being eternally long, so to speak, hit the sofa. The scratchy sofa.

Still, the road, used responsibly, is a powerful sedative.

First stop: First thing: a meeting in Potsdamerplatz. We all hopped on the U-Bahn, still confused and muddled and not quite ready for twenty-letter-long words, alien proclamations, or complex navigation around a city that seems to have de-marked its rail lines along the labels mauve, purple, magenta, off-blue-red, and dark lilac.

Even in the meeting, I rejected coffee as five other heads around me bobbed at the offer of water. I did the thing where you walk into a bar with someone and they offer to buy you a drink, and as a warm-hearted offer of gratitude you say 'Whatever you're having!', like a little Christmas cracker expression of companionship. No sooner, however, had I said 'Yes, water would be lovely, thanks.' than two other people grunted '...coffee.', and I immediately regretted my decision...but also in the spirit of what I'd already done felt uncomfortable contemplating my going 'Oh...actually...yeah, I'll have coffee.' Because I didn't want to be a pain in asking for a coffee that had already been offered to me.

We were all tired, is what I'm saying.

But we had a lovely time, up there on the somethingth floor, looking out of the big glass windows onto the city below. We began by talking about the weather. That made us feel at home.

That, then, and then after a little stroll and coordination we hit a café for a couple of interviews and a photo-shoot. There was an ashtray on the table. The British mind boggles. You can smoke inside. In a café. You know, in comfort. You can do something that you enjoy, in comfort. After being slightly underwhelmed by what I'd seen that morning (the city has something of a reputation for a slightly more Epicurean, rather than George Bestian hedonism - something I was looking forward to having thrust, Arthurially, in my puffy face, but something which had not yet occured), suddenly, with sensible Health and Safety legislation based on the practical apportionment of separate rooms and acknowledgement that perhaps life is not a mere exercise in sanitisation [pardon me, History, I really didn't mean to, though you may indeed wish to poke your head around a corner or two on this one], this place was starting to speak to me, albeit with yellowed teeth and sooty breath.

Another coffee offered to us, another one rejected. Two of them rejected on the grounds (grounds) that 'we've already had one.'

Damn.

Two really nice interviews, and a painful but honestly awkward photo-shoot in and around the place. I ended up with the one bit of sofa that had turned into a sink-hole, so as everyone else tried to look their coolest I was left just hoping I didn't look like a man with legs only up to my knees, waddling around and hunched over.

Me, only more gremlinised.

Move towards gig-time. Our first gig in Berlin and our first city gig in Europe; the only other European date being in Croatia more than twelve months ago.

See the venue. It's nice, in a cool 'under the tracks' kind of way. We were literally under the tracks, though – I don't mean that just to describe the type. Sorry to rail on at you, but I haven't been a good sleeper lately and it's tricky to stay on track.

Balb.

See the backstage area. There is coffee. There is coffee and you can smoke inside and there is beer in glass bottles and vodka and giant pretzels and chocolate. This is heaven.

Confusion. No sound-check? No pre-gig line-check?

ONCE MORE UNTO THE BREACH, DEAR FRIENDS!

It's a blur until before the gig. People came! People were there! You lovely people! Who could ask for more? They came and they applauded and they cheered and they even sympathised with a little synthesised mayhem as a tiny glitch on the computer thought that Atomic wasn't avant-garde enough, so rather than ending in that big prog-euro-trance way that it does, it ended with a fart on the bass and a distinct sense of disappointment, like those brioche rolls that come in opaque packages and aren't really brioche and contain chocolatey liquid instead of chocolate chunks but you bought it thinking it was real brioche and you won't make that mistake again, because you're no sweetbread fool.

But, apart from that, we did ourselves proud [pats self on back with flapping bum]

Oh, good lord. 

So, I mean, I'm still getting over it.

Because then the evening happened, and Berlin in all of its glory came out to shine.

What's that? The hotel bar is closing and we're not allowed in? But...our friends said they were here. Yes, we are English. The bar is definitely closing? Yes!? Oh...there's our friend. Oh he's made eye contact with you and given you a little nod. Oh, we're allowed in now, are weyeswefuckingarebecausewe'refuckingPhoria. 

The good people at Humming Records know how to show their bands the city. They could not have been more welcoming or friendly and we heartily appreciate them and the work they're doing for us over there.

We all sat around then, drank, almost accidentally ordered shandy again, and slipped gradually down the cushions in the comfortable hotel bar.

Where are we going next?

Clubbing?

Sigh.

OK, but I don't dance. There won't be dancing, will there? I don't dance. I hate dancing. OK, I'll go and see how it is but if there's dancing then I might head back. Yeah, I know it's Berlin, but I hate dancing and just because I'm in Berlin it doesn't mean that if you're all dancing and I'm on my own in some club that I'm suddenly going to like dancing.

7am, then, and after dancing all night we're getting the train home from, like, omg the coolest club, like, ever. I had to text my England-stationed-bastion-of-hope-in-the-world to tell her that I was in a place that felt like:

...a mix between the house from Resident Evil and the club where Neo meets Trinity in The Matrix. Also don't be jealous and you're a total bitch who smells.

It was just one long roller-coaster of action that doesn't fit into much of a driving story. We hit another bar the next night and found it difficult to leave 'early' at 2am (we had to leave because we had to drive home the next day), because yet again the party was just getting started. That city just keeps going.

We, along with some of the German people we met, lamented a little the UK drinking culture and how, for us, its relative paucity of imagination was highlighted by this little trip. Not just little things that you get on the continent like, you know, being trusted as an adult to take a glass outside every now and then, but just the way in which the evening/morning is approached. I come from a small town in South Devon, and, on a Saturday night, the vomit stings your eyes and blue lights stink up the place. In Berlin, the capital city of Germany, this just...wasn't there. Not a hint of it.

Then again, we met a man outside the train station one night and he said, and I quote:

'...if Thom Yorke was in the same room as me, right now, I'd rape him so hard with a plastic dick that his arse would break into a hundred pieces.'

So I guess the civilised times are just where you find them.

That said, we want to go back, and hope that Germany can offer the same when we head to Hamburg in just another couple of days.

More road, more fun, more gigs, and we're going to try and bring Thom Yorke.

We hope you're well.

I'm going to spend the day tidying my little flat because I have an 'inspection' tomorrow.

It's good to be home.

I believe that's the Officially Sanctioned Motto of National Solidarity, anyway. That and 'Call Centre Positions Are Real Jobs', which we should repeat to ourselves over and over again, lest anybody begin to feel disenfranchised.

Heaven forfend.

Cheers,

Tim

'Something in the way she moves, affects me like no other mower.' - Something (it is a lawnmower) by The Beatle.

It's been about four weeks.

'My God...has it been that long? Martin! We've got to fly you into some of the past!'

That's how long it takes us to start living and lose all sense of 'band-time', only to regain the pace and begin again to watch the life drain out of us like dirty water in Norman Bates' bathtub.

There's a good excuse for our prolonged absence. The Northern hemisphere calls it 'Summer', and I hear that's exactly what it was. I wouldn't really know, as I've spent much of it inside, debating with my brain about whether it should debate with itself [we won!], and whistling along to The Bill theme tune. I've also eaten lots of vegetables because I hear they're food, now, and developed a cure for beard dandruff which involves covering your neck in anti-gravity hunting paint, submerging your head in a bucket of dead wasps, and blinking faster than a 1970s entertainer driving to buy a new computer. In my estimate the cure takes seven to ten years to take effect so here's hoping it works otherwise I'll have wasted the time I have spent on doing that to have the cure for it and stop it from being there when it is !have!

So, yes. You can see I've been busy and keeping on an even keel.

Trewin's been living on a farm, so it seems. He's had us over, once or twice, to ride the lawnmower [not rude] and paddle a little paddle boat around a great big god-damn lake. I tell you one thing, though: he never offered us a cup of tea. Not once. I'll never go there again; a situation in which I am doubtless the victor.

Jeb's been in his room, again, editing. Still.

I keep a little doll house of where everyone in the band is, so I can keep track and play with them and make them do things [not rude things!] when no-one else is around and when I'm just about to have a shower so I can properly picture what they're doing at all hours of the day without resorting to booting up the laptop and logging in to the 'safety-cam' network. The Jeb doll hasn't moved except for me to clean it up and wipe the tears of loneliness and fear from its face.

I threw the Trewin bit in the garden and I think a bird got it.

I take the Seryn bit in and out. Sometimes it's submerged in a glass of wine, surrounded by women's underwear and stuff, and sometimes it's in its room staring vacantly at the wall wondering why toenails, given sniff, do smell.

I sent the Ed bit around Europe and the UK in a sterilised envelope to simulate all of Ed's holidays that he's been on. I took the time to fumigate his part of the dolls house and plug in a Glade plug-in so that hopefully he'd forget about while he was out but ooh! a fresh surprise on his return.

There's some new music in the works, too, and we've had a couple of meetings and plans for going forward with a track or fifty and what we want to do and when we want to do it and, more importantly, why?

Why?

Well, for you, of course.

 

For you.

So that's our summer, post-tour.

We're off to Berlin on Thursday, which should be...you know. Nice.

We're looking forward to it a little bit.

Here's the gig.

If you're around (which let's face it, you probably are I mean it's only Berlin) then you should come.

Fun fun fun and back to work.

The evenings are getting dark again, too, which means I'm getting happier.

Enjoy the fruits of your labours, and the delights of your friends and family.

Unless you hate your job and other people, in which case just get by as best you can.

Watch a film, or something.

Bye.

Tim